As a rule I tend to avoid movie trailers. This is mostly due to the fact that way too often they end up playing the part of the drunk guest at a wedding and revealing way, way more than anyone wanted to see, but also because they have a bad habit of misrepresenting the tone, content, or overall quality of the movie they are selling. Sometimes you’ll see an awful trailer for a great movie, but more often than not it seems that a pretty damn great trailer announces and teases a project that ends up being completely unworthy of it.

What’s that?

Examples?

WE GOT ‘EM:

Man of Steel

The trailer:
Mournful music. Epic, iconic imagery. A man adrift, struggling to understand his place in the world and his obligation to it, or lack thereof; and an ancient myth seemingly being given new life.

The movie:
An empty and pointless Snyder smashfest with the occasional pretty picture thrown in.

Prometheus

The trailer:
Minimalist glory, evoking the peerless excellence of the masterpiece that is the original Alien! A wordless menace and claustrophobic terror in space! The Alien typeface! Idris Elba!

The trailer:
Martin Scorsese. Liam fucking Neeson. Holy shit Daniel Day-Lewis, and the promise of a colourful, violent New York period setting. A hot bed of tensions and double dealings. And knives. Loads of knives.

The movie:
Yeah, we got the knives, and the Day-Lewis, but that was about it. Other than that this was Set Design: The Movie. Even Liam Neeson checked out early.

300

The trailer:
Fuck, that’s a great choice of track. I mean, damn, that works. And the trailer is like a little mini-movie in and of itself! Okay, young Zack Snyder, let’s see what you got.

The movie:
Should have remained a trailer mini-movie, instead of expanding to a feature length crypto-fascist ramble.

Watchmen

The trailer:
Probably the greatest graphic novel of all time. They called it unadaptable. Yet here it was, adapted and all. Skepticism was high, but look at the faithful recreation of imagery. The tone seemed just about right too. And that Smashing Pumpkins tune… But mainly that imagery! How could something this striking and faithful poss-… Oh, Zack Snyder you say?
The movie:
Zack Snyder.

The movie:
How do you make an effervescent, filthy 3 hour party with a timely and relevant message boring? I don’t know, but they did. At least McConnaughey’s funny hum thing paid off.

The Place Beyond The Pines

The trailer:
Tattooed Gosling, Eva Mendes, and BEN MENDELSOHN in some sort of meditative and mournful treatise on consequences and regret?

The movie:
A stodgy, overwrought, plodding mess.

Also, Bradley Cooper.

The Phantom Menace

The trailer:
Fuckme, Star Wars is back!!!

The movie:

Justice League
I’m calling it now.

The trailer:
I mean, I don’t think that is a particularly good trailer, but a lot of people seem to like the fact that DC and Zack Snyder apparently looked up the definition of the word ‘joke’ in the dictionary and then rushed off to apply it somewhere. And Jason Momoa is always cool I guess.